education, despite the fact that Lucia did not do it. This indicates that Lucia has passion to update herself and realize that woman has equal opportunity in
education.
2. Lucia as an independent woman
Independent is the quality of someone, which is not dependent on other people or thing; it is not controlled by other people or thing. A woman who does
not depend on other anymore is called an independent woman.
Based on this definition, Lucia can be called as an independent woman in every aspect, such as independent in financial and mentally. It can be seen from
her daily live as a carrier woman who’s not depend on her family or other. Lucia Sartori is a daughter of a prosperous Italian grocer in Greenwich
Village. Even though her father has a prosperous grocery, Lucia doesn’t work there. Lucia doesn’t want to depend on her family wealthy. She gets a job in a big
department store in Fifth Avenue. In this case, even Lucia has a family wealthy, she could be independent in financial.
“I still can’t believe that this is where I work, that every second Friday I receive a paycheck printed on pale blue paper with my name typed neatly
in black. PAY TO THE ORDER OF MISS LUCIA SARTORI. The bottom right corner bears the official stamp of R. Prescott, Vice President,
and in the bottom left corner, “Custom department” is neatly handwritten”. Trigiani 2003, 19
From the explanation, we can conclude that Lucia is independent in
finance. She doesn’t depend on her family even though she lives with her family, she could buy anything with her own money. Moreover being independent in term
of financial is something that really fascinates her. Her first phrase “I still can’t believe”
indicates how independence was seemed far away to be reached. Since
now she is independent, she still feels as if it is a dream come true that she needs to remind herself of her independence.
In her personal life, Lucia always uses her own money to her needs. In addition Lucia can also raise money for future planning. One of her planning is to
build her own home. “It’s hard to believe that I’ve saved 8,988.78 in the six year I’ve been
working. I never went on vacations, other than ones with my family, or splurged in jewelry or a car. I made most of my cloths, and the things I
couldn’t make I bought at Altman’s sales with my employee discount. I knew that someday I’d need a nest egg. I plan to spend about 1000 on
furnishing in Italy, and I will keep 500 in the saving account as a little emergency fund. The rest I put into down payment for the construction of
our house Lucia and her fiancé, John in Huntington Bay.” Trigiani 2003, 158
Lucia knows that someday if she gets married, she will have her own
home with her husband. Other that, Lucia also feels that no one can give her anything that she
cannot buy by herself. None of the fancy things I have been given in my live, from Papa’s gift of
coral enlace on my sixteenth birthday to John Talbots mink coat, meant nearly as much to me as the things I bought myself with the 48.50 a week
I made at B Altman and Company. There isn’t a man who can come along and buy me anything that I cannot earn myself. “Never let the man know
that,” Mama used to say to me, but the lesson didn’t take. I’ve spent wisely and never splurged. I remember the radio, the hairdryer with deluxe
bonnet, and the canopy bed from the interior Decoration that I bought with my own money. I calculated how many hours I had to work against the
value of the purchase. I could practically tell you how many stitches I’d need to sew to walk out of B Altman’s with whatever item my heart
desired. Trigiani 2003, 233 Lucia felt that no man can give any valuable thing, only that she could buy
by herself with her own money from her work.
Besides being financially independent, she is also mentally independent. It can be seen when Lucia stays at her parents’ home. Lucia feels that she can live
on her own outside from her family. Her staying in her parent’s home is not because she cannot live by herself, because she likes her room, and loves her
parents. “I have always known that if I walked out of my parents’ home, I could
get my own apartment and live a good life. I stay here because I love my room with the window overlooking Commerce Street. And I love my
mother and father, until I marry; I want to be with them”. Trigiani 2003, 35
As in her life she had once engaged to a nice young man from the
neighborhood, Dante De Martino. However, romance does not run smoothly because there is demand from Dante’s parents that Lucia has to stop working later
when she marries with their son. But Lucia rejects it. After Lucia breaks the engagement with Dante she meets another man, John Talbot. Lucia loves John,
but her father does not approve this relationship. “I go back into the living room. Mama has sunk into her chair and Papa
stands, looking down at the garden with his back to me “You know something?” I say, talking to Papa’s back. “If one of your sons had come
home with a girl tonight and she was wearing a new diamond ring, you never would behave toward her the way you did toward John. You ruined
the most beautiful day of my life. Rot in hell.”Trigiani 2003, 154 “I take the stairs up to my room two at time. I hear my father calling to me
angrily from the bottom of the stairs. No matter how old I am, he still is the leader of this household and will not tolerate disrespect. But I can’t
tolerate his disrespect of me, either. I get into my room and lock the door. I go to my vanity and turn on the small lamp and open the drawer. I remove
my saving register from the Chase National Bank and remind myself that I have the means to live my live outside of this house. The long row of
deposits written in blue ink soothes me. I’m independent woman, I tell myself, and when I look in the mirror, I believe it.”Trigiani 2003, 154
From the explanation above, it can be seen that Lucia feels confident if she had to leave the house because of her relationship with John was forbidden by her
father. She also felt that she could live independently out there with everything she had, including her saving. In this case Lucia also compared with her brother,
who would be given a lot of priority by her father in every way, because women do not always have the right to express his opinion.
One of Lucia’s characteristics that stood out among is the independency. She knows how she can be happy without a partner even in a bad situation after
John leaves Lucia. My biggest problem with the opposite sex is that I know how to be happy
on my own. It’s in my nature to make the best of a bad situation. Even now, with the department closing, there are opportunities to pursue for a
worker of my caliber and experience. I may have to travel across the country to seize an opportunity, but still, it’s mine for the taking.”Trigiani
2003, 233 When Lucia is trying to build her life again after John leaves her, the
department where she works is closed and Lucia is very sad. But she knows that there will be a lot of job for her, because she knows that she has a good ability.
Even she has to find a job across the country or not.
3. Decisive woman
